Sunday, October 26, 2014

"Love God. Love your neighbor. Change
the world." Last month as students returned to Western Washington
University, the members of EpiC, that is, Episcopal Campus Fellowship,
superimposed this slogan over an image of a solar eclipse and had little
buttons made to hand out at the school's annual Info Fair. "Love God. Love
your neighbor. Change the world." This is a paraphrase of Jesus’ words
from today's gospel, words which came from two places in the Jewish law:
Deuteronomy, and Leviticus. We gave our buttons away to students who stopped by
our booth, but also to the other religious groups whose booths surrounded ours.
We gave buttons to the Christians, and since Jesus was quoting the Torah here,
we also gave buttons to the two Jewish groups. It was epic.

Jesus presents these two great
commandments to those who are listening to him teach in Jerusalem. Over the
past few Sundays, we've been hearing a number of stories that take place during
this time, after his triumphal procession into the city, but before his arrest.
The atmosphere is tense, with those in positions of power continually trying to
knock Jesus off his high horse.

But Jesus isn't on a high horse; he
prefers a humble donkey. Every time they try to trap Jesus in his own words,
the leaders of the Pharisees and Sadducees find themselves exposed and
vulnerable instead. With unassailable authority, Jesus has ranked tax
collectors and prostitutes ahead of the holiest keepers of the law. He has
taught emphatically that the kingdom of God will be taken away from those who
think they have it all together and given to people who know how much mercy
they need. He has sidelined the mighty Roman Empire as irrelevant to God's
agenda, since God is all-powerful, even over Caesar. And now, in tying these
two old commandments together in a new way, Jesus seeks to clarify the
priorities of God’s chosen people. Love, he says ... just love. Do this, all
the rest of those old rules will make sense to you in a new way. Pour every decision
you make through the funnel of love.

Well, OK. The words are clear, but how
do you and I go about them, loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves?
Obviously, loving God is an important thing to do, but it seems like a rather
abstract directive. Is it simply an exercise of will, or of memory -- remembering
to say "I love you, God" every now and then? Loving our neighbors is
the commandment that helps us, because it gives us a field in which to practice
loving God. We cannot love God without loving what God loves: human beings, and
the world God is creating out of love. God loves even our enemies, and when we
hate them, we are failing to love those whom God loves. So if you want to start
loving God right now, begin by loving your neighbor, whoever he or she may be.
Encountering people in the flesh and acting towards them out of love is an
undeniably concrete way to go.

Here at St. Paul's, we are always
trying to engage, on some level, these two commandments to love. People come to
us with all different kinds of experiences of God at work in their lives, seen
through the lens of a huge variety of life experiences. People come here
because the news headlines are devastating and scary. They come here to heal
from deep pain and confusion. They come from other churches where they may have
felt that the pieces didn't quite fit together. Many come seeking concrete
answers to very big questions. If you're in this camp, allow me to confess
something to you. In the Episcopal church, we're not all that big on hard and
fast answers, because above all, we don't want to offer a simplistic answer. We
have answers, to be sure, but more often than not they come with a footnote
that leads to some other entry, or even to an opposing point of view. Sometimes,
as the Indigo Girls once put it, “There’s more than one answer to these
questions, pointing me in a crooked line.”

Maybe you’re sitting here today
thinking, “OK, I believe in God, or at least, I believe in something." Well,
great—then let’s just begin with that. Where does this belief come from? Is it a
gut feeling that we are not merely a temporary grouping of random molecules? Or
does it run deeper? Is there emotion in it? Is there trust in it? Does it lead
you towards any particular action? Could it be that love is somewhere in the
mix?

Maybe despite being here today, you're
saying, "I don't need a church. I'd rather follow my heart and do it my
own way." Well, there's nothing wrong with having a one-on-one with God on
a mountaintop--in fact, this is a great thing to do, especially around here!
But when we bring our holy experiences alongside those of others, we find
untold opportunities to learn even deeper wisdom, to see God in a clearer
light. Individuality is very important, but individuality paired with community
is far stronger. In a community, people can bring their personal, individual
experiences of God, who cannot be understood in the same way by everybody, and
we can have a conversation.

Perhaps your gripe is that the Bible
is so full of rules, and you wonder whether joining a church means committing
to the whole shebang. Well, we've just heard Jesus set all those old rules into
their proper context. Rules arise out of culture and situation, and they do
change over time. But the great commandments of love do not change. Christianity
is an art form, not a rule book. Many people fall into the trap of thinking
that being a Christian is a matter of giving intellectual assent to a list of
propositions, while checking off a list of commandments not broken today ... but
this couldn’t be further from the truth. Christianity is, instead, a venue for
holy conversation, and it is a road we make by walking it. Christianity is a
journey that seeks wisdom too grand and too elusive ever to be fully understood
by the human mind, wisdom that is about being loved and loving and serving others.
Those of us in the church have come to believe that this wisdom is worth
pursuing just for the sheer joy of pursuing it. Many of us can't imagine living
our lives any other way.

So you can't be a Christian in a
vacuum, and you can't fully understand Christianity looking from the outside in.
Our hope at St. Paul’s is that everyone who walks through these doors will feel
welcomed and will be able to connect with us in some way. Perhaps God has led
you here today through some mysterious process. Indeed, God will always meet us
where we are. But God loves us too much to let us stay there. We won't to tell
you what to think, because your life is your journey, and it is simply our
pleasure to walk alongside you. And so we welcome you to a well of wisdom that we
have been keeping here for centuries, and we invite you to drink deeply.

Furthermore, you are absolutely
welcome to hover around the edges for as long as you want, but know that this
is also a place where you can make a commitment for life. Baptism is that
commitment: it is what makes one a Christian. We baptize infants and children
because we are eager to hold out before them a specific path to wisdom. Then
they make their road by walking, and we walk alongside them. We also baptize
adults, and we invite adults who were baptized as children to make an adult
proclamation of their faith and to take on their baptismal vows for themselves.
And we do all these things in community, not in private. Christianity is for
people who want a way to walk alongside others, and who have found that the way
that makes the most sense includes the story of the creator joining forces with
the created. Jesus walks with us on this way, having gone on ahead and come
back to assure us that there is nothing to fear.

Here at St. Paul's, we've been
journeying together in a very concrete way in the little community of people
that has formed on Wednesday nights over the past month. We offer a Eucharist
on Wednesday evenings at 5:30, followed by a community supper prepared in turns
by those who come. Following supper are our classes--with simultaneous childcare!
And we've just finished our first four-week series. The next set will begin
this coming Wednesday night at 6:45. If you wonder what it might mean to live
in the tension between doubt and faith, come join Ben Amundgaard and the Rev.
Armand Larive for their four-week class on that topic. If you wonder about the
Bible, what’s in it, what it’s for, and how you might approach it, I myself
will be teaching that class. And Father Jonathan’s class on prayer will be a
great way to engage that first commandment: “Love God.”

In January, these Wednesday night
classes will flow naturally into a process we call Journey, a process by which
you can come to be baptized or to make an adult affirmation of the baptismal
vows that were made for you in childhood. Journey is the St. Paul's version of
the process by which the earliest Christians came to be baptized: through
prayer and learning, through fellowship and theological reflection. Journey
will meet on Wednesdays from January through May, culminating at the Great
Vigil of Easter when we will baptize new Christians. You can be a part of
Journey even if you don't want to make any particular affirmation of faith. Journey
is also just a great way to join this holy conversation.

And so we invite you, whoever you are
and wherever you find yourself on this journey of faith, to Journey with us
towards ever deeper wisdom. The church isn't here just to sustain itself, but
to help God transform people's lives from fear into faith, hope, and love. As
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, "So deeply do we care for you that we are
determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own
selves, because you have become very dear to us." Amen.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

A number of years ago I asked a
group of ten Episcopal high schoolers, “Who are your godparents?”

About half of them had no idea.
The other half said, “My aunt and uncle,” or “my mom’s best friend and her
husband.”

I asked, “If you were wrestling
with a really deep question or a difficult problem, and you didn’t feel
comfortable bringing it to your parents, would you bring it to your
godparents?”

The first reply pulled no punches:
“Absolutely not! My godparents are way too close to my parents.” So out
of that group of ten teenagers, not one had a meaningful, unique relationship with
his or her godparents.

Clergy aren’t often asked for tips
on how to choose godparents. Many come to the Episcopal church from a tradition
that doesn’t have godparents. Others come with the notion that godparents are
those appointed to raise the children should the parents die, but this is a
separate legal reality that has nothing to do with baptism. So they bring their
children to the font with godparents already chosen, usually on the sole basis
of who they are personally close to. One of my seminary professors, Dr. Lisa
Kimball, wrote her doctoral thesis on godparenting. She says that “being a
godparent is a distinct honor and responsibility without a roadmap.”

Our culture has gotten much more
mobile. We can’t expect the godparents we choose to live near our children all
their lives. Yet grace abounds: I have four godchildren, and I’m convinced that
in more than one case, it is that godparent relationship that keeps our
families working hard to develop long-term friendships.

My oldest godchild is 14 now, and
her brother is 16. They haven’t attended church regularly since they were very
young. But our families keep making an effort to spend time together, and my
friendship with the kids is very different from my friendship with their
parents. We have spent many years nurturing personal closeness. One weekend I
watched several episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my
goddaughter, and as we baked cookies, we even talked about Jesus. A deep
conversation with her brother about reading the Bible in context actually
inspired him to read people in context, and not to jump to conclusions
about their intentions. I know my relationships with them will continue to be
important. I pray that I will have moments of such significance with all my
godchildren, again and again. And at the very least, I will let them know repeatedly
that such a relationship is a possibility.

Choose godparents carefully. Choosing
them from among family and friends necessitates an effort to let your kids
develop their own relationship with them over time. Choosing them from within
the congregation means that, at least for now, your kids will see their
godparents every week. Your children’s godparents can take them up to the
communion rail. They can mark baptism anniversaries with gifts (I have a list
of good books) and memories about that important day. Most importantly, all
godparents can be models of how a Christian lives: not perfectly, but with
intention and with trust in God.

Get ready. Something important is about to be
revealed. God is about to do a new thing … do you not perceive it? Do you feel
the buzz inside of you, the source of your very breath and heartbeat, humming a
message that change is coming? The change is coming, and the change has already
begun. The change began in the past, but we can see it in the present. It’s a mystery,
it’s a big deal, and it’s very good news. Such change is very likely to frighten
us—so we need to hear again and again the reassurance Isaiah offers us today:
“Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid.”

There are two kinds of fear, you see. When we
hear in the Bible that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” such
fear is not abject cowering, but reverent awe. I am so small, so seemingly
insignificant, and yet my creator loves me eternally. What if I screw it up? No,
because of the good news … I will trust in God, and everything will be OK. I
can put my head underwater, and I will not drown. But even if I do drown, I
will be raised. And that’s so exciting, I just have to tell others about it.

Furthermore, don’t let the metaphors fool you.
When Jesus talks about masters beating their slaves, that’s not a threat; it’s
an exclamation point. The metaphor is deeply disturbing to us, because it is
difficult to remove the lens of our country’s shameful and abusive legacy of
slavery. We can’t imagine an ancient world in which slavery was just a fact of
life from which even Jesus could freely draw metaphors.

Jesus’ parable itself is not about slavery, but
leadership. A new community of believers is forming, and they are intentionally
setting themselves against the human tendency towards fear. Peter wonders
whether those in positions of power among the believers will be held to as high
a standard of behavior as everybody else. Jesus’ reply is that leaders are
actually held to a higher standard, because their responsibility is greater. If
they cause the believers to fear, they have chosen to trap themselves in their
own fear. Either way, the Son of Man—that is, Jesus—is coming … has come … will
come … is among us now.

What does it mean that “the Son of Man is
coming at an unexpected hour”? This, too, is a mystery. Some people take the
Second Coming of Jesus very literally as a future worldwide event, while others
see it as more individual than general, and more metaphorical. I want to
suggest today that it doesn’t matter all that much what you believe, as long as
you don’t imagine Jesus coming back as someone we wouldn’t recognize from the
portrait we have of him in the Gospels. Earlier this year, Jerry Boykin of the
Family Research Council imagined out loud that when Jesus comes back, he’ll be
packing an AR-15. Now, regardless of what you think of the Second Coming, this
is atrocious theology. The minute we imagine that the purpose of Jesus’ return
is to destroy people rather than to draw all creation to himself, we have
strayed away from the gospel. We have become those who instill fear rather than
relieving it, and then we have trapped ourselves in our own fear.

In the world Jesus came to announce, there is
no fear, and there is no slavery—only reverent awe and joyful obedience to an
unquestionably good and loving creator. Jesus wanted his disciples to
understand how important it is to take the good news to the entire world. By
the time of the writing of Luke’s gospel, there was a Christian church made up
of Jews and Gentiles and some of the unlikeliest people, a body of believers
spreading rapidly around the known world. We are the inheritors of this good
news. We are today’s church.

The church is not a club for hobbyists, and it is not a
business for salespeople. It is God acting on earth now, whenever we align
ourselves with faith and not fear. The church is not to be identified with the
Kingdom of God, except when it actually participates in that Kingdom. The
church is a mystery, and it is available to everyone.

Both Luke and Paul understood the universality of the
church. We are not an exclusive organization, an attitude that plays into the
most disappointing side of human nature. For 2000 years we have been plagued by
Christian leaders who were afraid of those whose experience of God didn’t immediately cohere with the story they had received. Such leaders have cast
exclusivity as clarity, but then they have used their clarity as a weapon. The
church’s job is not to bludgeon people with “correct” teaching, but to offer stories
against which all of us can hold up our own experience of God. The church is a
well of wisdom to which we believers invite the thirsty to drink. Because God
is at work in all this mess called life, we have no cause for fear.

And so we all begin in the same place: we find ourselves
to be alive and aware, and we are in a state of wonder about our very
existence. And having received good news, we are to share it: Jesus is the very
icon of the God who made us, offering us hope and life and salvation, and doing
the work of God that Isaiah promised to us: “Surely,
it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid.” Trust in God,
who saves. Live without fear. Your life, along with all of creation, is being redeemed.
Amen.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

On Broad Street in London, this cross marks the site
of the burning of the Oxford Martyrs.

The Oxford
Martyrs—Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer—were burned at the
stake for the heresy of participating in the Protestant Reformation in England.
This occurred under “Bloody” Queen Mary in 1555 and 1556.

Latimer and
Ridley were burned first, resolute and unflinching. An eyewitness named John
Foxe wrote: “Dr. Ridley, the night
before execution, was very facetious, had himself shaved, and called his supper
a marriage feast; he remarked upon seeing Mrs. Irish (the keeper’s wife) weep,
‘Though my breakfast will be somewhat sharp, my supper will be more pleasant
and sweet.’”

Of the
execution itself, Foxe wrote: “A
lighted [timber] was now laid at Dr. Ridley’s feet, which caused Mr. Latimer to
say, ‘Be of good cheer, Ridley; and play the man. We shall this day, by God’s
grace, light up such a candle in England, as, I trust, will never be put out.’
When Dr. Ridley saw the flame approaching him, he exclaimed, ‘Into thy hands, O
Lord, I commend my spirit!’ and repeated often, ‘Lord receive my spirit!’ Mr.
Latimer, too, ceased not to say, ‘O Father of heaven receive my soul!’”

Thomas
Cranmer was not martyred that day because he had signed a document recanting
his Protestant theology. Cranmer, the chief architect of our Book of Common
Prayer, strikes me as a man who would have had no patience with the kind of violence
that results from ignorance. Perhaps at first, he felt that a recantation would
not have to be a betrayal. But he found his conscience tortured, and eventually
he recanted his

The Burning of Thomas Cranmer

recantation. Cranmer was sent to the stake five months after
Ridley and Latimer. At Cranmer’s final speech just before his execution, he said,
“Forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to
my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished.” And so he put his writing
hand into the fire first, before the flames engulfed his entire body.

Clearly, our
reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians was very carefully chosen
for this occasion. "The work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it,
because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work
each has done." All
three of these martyrs were burned at the stake for teaching certain things
about God, things that were contrary to the church’s official teaching. But
these ideas fanned the flames of the Reformation, the results of which include
the birth of all the Protestant denominations, in addition to a
Counter-Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church.

Paul described
Christianity as a building constructed on the foundation of Jesus: “According to the grace of God given to me,
like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building
on it." In taking the story of Jesus to the Gentiles, Paul was among the
first to build on the foundation Jesus had laid. And what are the qualities of
this foundation? The Gospels give us a panoramic view of the foundation, centered
on love for God and love for each other. We are to walk through our lives
transforming hate into love, and that will not happen without resistance,
because two of the biggest enemies of love are fear and unchecked power.

No religion exists or operates in a vacuum,
but is conditioned by the culture and the power structures around it. I want to
stress that what Jesus came up against was not Judaism itself, but fearful,
besieged Jewish individuals conspiring with the unchecked power of Rome. That
combination quite often turns deadly. What Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer came up
against was not Roman Catholicism itself, but a fearful, besieged Vatican
conspiring with the unchecked power of the English monarchy. In Syria and Iraq
today, Christians and other religious minorities are not coming up against
Islam itself, but against certain fearful, besieged Muslims conspiring with the
unchecked power of military weaponry. And in a much less deadly example, Mark
Driscoll stepped down this week as the lead pastor of Mars Hill Church. He
strikes me as a very fearful person who was given way too much unchecked power
and chose to keep taking more.

The problem with religions is that they are
made up of flawed, fearful human beings who experience power as a way to gain control
over their fear. The deadly combination of fear plus power can turn deadly with
or without religion. And we, too, are vulnerable to participation in this toxic
combination. It can happen on a very small, local level. It can happen in local
governments, in schools, in churches, and even in our own families. Fear … plus
power … minus accountability.

How are you handling your fear these days?
Every angel appears with the words “Fear not,” and at the heart of the
Christian message is the good news that we have no cause for fear. This does
not magically remove the existential fear that is part of our human condition.
But that is why spreading the good news is so important, so that people the
world over may come closer to living without fear.

I saw a meme on Facebook today that said,
“Relax—nothing is under control.” And a classmate reminded me of something our
liturgics professor had told us at exam time: “If you can change it, why worry?
If you can’t change it, why worry?”

I am reminded of Jesus’ words in Luke’s
gospel: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure
to give you the kingdom.”

As for power, how are you holding yourself
accountable for the power you have? Perhaps more importantly, how are you
asking others to hold you accountable? When life feels out of control, it can
be easy to grasp tightly to whatever power we may have to influence others. But
what if we didn’t? What if we abdicated power instead? What if we assumed we
didn’t know everything? What if we really trusted that the Holy Spirit is at
work in our lives, breathing newness and renewal and opening possibilities we
haven’t yet imagined?

Paul cautions us today: “Each builder must
choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other
than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.”

To this day, we keep
building the Church. Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer were among those who launched
the Reformation in England that would eventually lead to our Episcopal Church,
and you and I are builders, too. How will we adapt the Church going forward,
never losing sight of our foundation in Jesus?

Thursday, October 9, 2014

If you grew
up within the realm of Christianity, you have probably memorized and
internalized the Lord’s Prayer. It is the most cherished prayer of our faith,
because Jesus himself taught it to us. In today’s gospel reading from Luke, we
hear the most basic form of the prayer.

There’s
something stunning about realizing that Christians have used this prayer since
the time of Jesus of Nazareth himself. It’s not silly to keep repeating the
same prayer for millennia—but what if we’ve misunderstood Jesus? What if he
didn’t mean, “Use these words,” but simply, “Pray in this manner”? If so, in
what manner? What are the elements of this simple prayer?

Jesus begins
by addressing God as “Father.” In another places, Jesus describes the Hebrew God
as Abba—Daddy. It’s an incredibly familiar image of the transcendent God who
created all things and who thundered on Mount Sinai—more like images of God we
find in some of the psalms. Jesus asked us to imagine God not as distant and
dangerous, but as very near and loving—as our creator in the sense that our
parents created us. If God created both sexes, then God belongs exclusively to
neither. So calling God “Mother” is equally valid, even if two thousand years
of patriarchy has made such an image less familiar or comfortable.

Next comes
praise: “hallowed be your name.” Jesus acknowledges God’s holiness and
sovereignty. This is the flip side of the familiar image of “Father.” God isn’t
just any parent, but the parent. So we can be clear that this is not
some new god, but still the God of Israel, the great I AM. We haven’t lost sight
of God’s transcendence, even as we approach God through images of closeness and
warmth.

“Your
kingdom come,” says Jesus, and more extensive versions elaborate: “Your will be
done on earth as in heaven.” Those of us who pray the Lord’s Prayer are
intentionally aligning ourselves with God’s reign and God’s authority. We want
what God wants. We want God’s dream for the world to come true.

Once Jesus
has established that our desires must fall within the realm of God’s desires,
he begins to make his humble requests to God. The first is for something very
basic, simple, and real: bread. Daily bread—just enough for now, but reliably,
every day—like manna in the wilderness. Because we are God’s creation, we count
on God to provide what we need for our basic survival. We are not
self-sufficient beings.

Jesus’
second request is for forgiveness. Wait, you may ask. Is Jesus asking for
forgiveness, or is he telling us that we must ask for forgiveness? We may well
wonder whether Jesus ever asked for forgiveness, or whether that was never
really necessary. But suffice it to say that Jesus identifies sin—that is,
distance from God—as a core human problem. He phrases the problem using the
metaphor of debt, and he asserts that the remedy comes not from us, but from
God: God’s forgiveness of our debt. However, we are to ask for God’s
forgiveness in the same breath that we assert that we have forgiven the debts
of others. Here and in other places, Jesus makes clear that unless we forgive
the debts of others, we cannot possibly benefit from the forgiveness God grants
us. In aligning ourselves with what God wants, we cannot hang onto our feelings
of entitlement—of being owed anything by anybody.

Finally,
Jesus asks for heavenly guidance in the form of a negative request: “Do not
bring us to the time of trial.” We usually render this as, “Lead us not into
temptation.” So we ask God to steer us away from situations in which we might
be tested beyond our capabilities. In so doing, we acknowledge that not
everything in the universe is random, and that God is indeed able and, hopefully,
willing to help us in this way.

So, to
recap: we have an address … praise … realignment of our values … and then our
specific but humble requests. What if we structured all our prayers in this
way? Here’s one example we might imagine:

Jesus my brother and Lord, your example is an inspiration to
me, and I give myself to you completely. I want to be on board with what you
have done and are doing. In that spirit, could you please give me what I need
to lead this group I’m overseeing? I know I’ve made some bad calls in that
group, and I pray you’ll forgive me. I’ve been working hard to forgive those
who I think have overreacted to my mistakes, though I totally understand where
they’re coming from, and I’ve told them so. Some of my mistakes have come about
in situations where I feel out of control, and it would be great if you could
help me avoid winding up in that out-of-control situation again—unless, of
course, that’s exactly where I need to be for you to be at work through me.
Please help me be up to the task. Please do for me what I can’t do for myself.
Amen.

Here’s
another possibility:

Mama Spirit, you have brought me to life, and I’m so
thankful. Sometimes I love to stand in a windy place and imagine that you are
buffeting me about. Really, there’s nothing better in life that I can imagine
than that. You blow where you will, and when I just go along for the ride, I
find that things tend to work out pretty well. I’m not wealthy, but I’m happy.
I know I have everything I need, because it all comes from you. When I fail to
recognize that, please help me come back to you. Chase after me if you need to.
Catch me up in your wind and carry me to new, exciting places. But don’t let me
get so caught up in you that I forget about people who don’t understand you the
same way I do. When they misunderstand me, please help me forgive. Help me,
too, to understand others better. If you need to put me in situations that I
can’t control, then at least don’t make it too difficult for you and me to
handle together. Thank you.

Prayer comes
in great variety, and we all approach the same God from very different places
and different understandings. The God who made all things can be imagined in
many different ways, and your image of God will not be the same as mine.

In that
spirit, I encourage you to try this exercise at home. What will be your version
of the Lord’s Prayer for your life today?